Wolli Creek national park gains additional 4.7 hectares of land to complete Sydney ‘green ribbon’

The creation of one of Sydney’s largest green corridors has moved step closer with almost five hectares of rare native bushland in the city’s southern suburbs added to Wolli Creek Regional Park in the last year.

Frequented by people from across Sydney, the 4.7 hectares of new parkland that has been added to the park include 16 parcels of additional land, increasing its total area to 45 hectares and making it possible to walk all the way from Bexley North to Earlwood, and Earlwood to Wolli Creek.

Of the 4.7 hectares, 2.1 was transferred to the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service by the Office of Strategic Lands.

A further 2.6 hectares has been acquired from the City of Canterbury Bankstown and will protect ‘Nanny Goat Hill’ - which was saved in 1967 by a group of protesters from being flattened to gain runway fill for Sydney airport - which offers panoramic views across the Wolli Creek Valley.

This Park also conserves bushland along Wolli Creek which provides valuable open space and is also home to an array of birdlife, native mammals and a colony of Grey-headed Flying-foxes, which are listed as vulnerable.

It comes after 26 years after Peter Stevens, Vice-President of the Wolli Creek Preservation Society which formed in 1984, commenced a community campaign to protect the area.

Stevens advised “it’s usually relied on us jumping up and down at critical periods like elections.

“It has been really slow until this commitment by the present government; now things have started to move more rapidly.”

Advising that the extra 4.7 hectares was “a big step towards completion”, Stevens added “it’s this patch of green ribbon running towards the airport, there’s nothing else like it.

“Riverland bushland is a vanishing ecosystem; it has been eliminated almost everywhere, but particularly in the Canterbury Bankstown area, because that is one of the most densely populated areas of Sydney.”

The NSW Government said remaining land is yet to be acquired, but it will work with councils and the state’s Office of Strategic Lands to gain the final patches of the land needed to complete the park.

Advising of the acquisition, NSW Premier, Chris Minns stated “families across Sydney’s south, including my own, love our natural parklands.

“This expansion of the park will provide them with even more opportunities to enjoy nature right in our own backyards.”

The development follows the NSW Government’s commitment to convert half of the Moore Park Golf Course into public open space when its operating agreement expires in June 2026.

Images: The NSW Government has announced almost five hectares of parklands has been added to the Wolli Creek Regional National Park (top) and a small leaf fig tree in the area (below). Credit: NSW Government.